


Scry Over Spelt Milk

by Alyssandra Kyles (M1A)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1980 Romania, 2000 London, F/M, Mariage law, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), Muggleborn (MC), Muggles (orphans), Orphans, Purebloods (hubys), breeding programme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:14:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27835078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M1A/pseuds/Alyssandra%20Kyles
Summary: Alyssandra Stella Kyles (River) is reborn in 1980, forty years in the past. She is once again an orphan, but she was abandoned and found this time near a forest. Stela Ardelean (Forest), is her new identity in the Romanian orphanage. Times are hard, the orphanage matrons and other orphans are worse than in 1995. Stela could not wait to be old enough and flee to France or the UK. Thank god she has her căldură to help her get through the years and hardships.
Kudos: 1





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter series.

**_August 15th 2000_ **

~ı<•>ı~

Ministry of Magic

Dept of Magical Law Enforcement

Miss. S. Ardelean,

Fifth tree to the left

The Regent's Park

London

Enchanted against Unauthorised Opening

* * *

Dear Miss. S. Ardelean,

The Ministry of Magic would like to congratulate you on being chosen for the Breeding programme*. We have selected for you per our Arithmantic equation, your genetic and magical matches.

Please find enclosed your betrothed names and information on each, a future bride and mother would appreciate. You and your future husbands have a month to perform the binding ceremony and two years to produce a child.

We hope to find you in good health and wish you the best of luck for your future family.

Undersecretary

D. M. L. E.

*We would caution you that being 'chosen' means you have the choice to refuse. Although, if you do refuse your wand will be broken and you will have to spend ten years in Askaban. At any time during your stay, you will be able to change your mind and accept to be part of the Breeding programme.


	2. Reborn in the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stela never knew she was part of the wizarding world. Here are her 20 years of life before being made aware of this fictional society.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, Romanian orphanage during the 1980s were ROUGH!  
> Keep in mind this is a work of fiction, not all of it is accurate but it gets the message across.

Căldură has always been with me from the moment I could watch the colourful shapes playing hide and seek around my blurry eyesight.

I had panicked for a time about my deficiencies. The bad sight, the incapability to move my body, the sounds that came out gurgled and the distorted hearing. I wondered if, I was old, very old, on the brink of death, in a hospital bed with almost no muscles like Miriam’s grandmother. Poppy, we called her, like thefragile flower. She had been plugged for four years before Miriam decided to send her off. It had been sad to watch the strong affectionate deteriorate at such a fast pace.

Poppy had been such a warm lovable mother figure. Not one bit like my foster parents. Poppy was always there when căldură surged inside me. Pumping my blood. Warming my extremities. I never had been too cold here, wherever I had been before the orphanage.

I was born in 1980 in Romania, during the dictatorship. At one, I could babble theories to my parents. I had parents for once. I was happy.

Two years later it all changed. One day they dressed me in a brown dress with thick thighs and a wool cap. They circled a thin leather cord around my neck with a roughly cut piece of paper and a black scrawl on it. My mother’s blue eyes lifted my chin up and said in a harsh tone, “Daughter, we don’t have space for you now, remember this: Your name is Stela and you are born in 1980. You will survive.”

Later on, when I had been left near the woods in front of a huge building because of how short I was, I had tried to read the messy handwriting but could only determine a word and a date underneath. I guessed it was my name and date of birth. Emotions then had ruled over me, tears streaming slowly down my angry red cheeks. It was overwhelming. I had been abandoned again. It seemed that I would be continuously disappointed by adults.

The more I was torturing myself over my fate, the more căldură poured out of me in waves. I was feeling hot, too hot, and I could feel my blood boiling inside my veins. It happened then, a circle of fire burst outwards and incinerated to nearby fallen sticks and leaves.

I had been mesmerized by the sight, so much so, I screamed bloody murder when a calloused hand dropped like a weight on my head. The appendage was attached to a woman. Behind her twenty or so naked military children. Their hair was cut as such, and they were only orphans. Like I was now. No parents to take care of poor three years old me.

The woman manhandled me as she wanted, tugging my clothing, feeling the texture, fabric and/ or thickness. She then ripped the paper from around my neck and asked, “Stela?” in an bossy voice.

I nodded my head, my eyes still scanning the bare children. I had not realised, that some were girls and others, boys. With hair cut that short, genders were difficult to identify. The only help was the bits or no bits.

A crack reverberated inside my head and my cheek burned. The woman roughly gripped my jaw and jerked it upwards, her arrow eyes spearing mine. “Yes, Madam, you say.” My eyes widened almost popping out of my head. I stuttered out what she said and hoped I would not get a second slap. She nodded, seemingly satisfied and tugged at the cord like a leach, towards the hungry-looking children.

Eyes wide, lower lip wobbling with emotions and a bright red handprint on my cheek, I learnt to go with the flow and keep my head down.

It was not the last time I had been slapped. I have been beaten black and blue. My fingers hit purple with either stick or ruler. We all were bruised and treated like animals. When I grew out of my dress and thighs, they took them off and I was left, like all the others, naked.

In the morning we ate bread with jam and given milk through a ladle. The rest of the day we were fed a broth soup with floating pieces of meat.

Every day to keep us calm, the doctors distributed drugs. The first time I had swallowed one, I felt woozy and kept blinking every two seconds. The haze in my head, very similar to when I thought I was dying. It was the first dip in drugs and the last. Some children were addicted to them and I traded mine for favours, only the older orphans could supply. Security and the possibility to escape the orphanage during the day. Most of the time we were kept either roped to our bed or locked inside a cage. It was horrible. It was a prison.

At nine years old, we were free. The orphanage was forced to close and all the children left.

Adam, one of the older kids took my hand and we fled with some friends of his to his hideout, under the ground. The tunnels became our home. We cleaned with the water in the river nearby and brought food from the trash.

Something I learned at that time was that the Matrons called me Ardelean. Every child had an Orphanage-surname. Mine was Forest. Adam was called Street. Another, Hans, Dead end. It was not original. Ally was found in an ally. Rain when it was raining. Storm, Sun, River, Lake, …

Căldură helped in keeping the gang warm during winter. I could expand it from my body at will. None of Adam friends questioned it, or if they did, they did not seem to see me as a demon or witch. I was Adam’s girl. Platonic of course. Like Dead end had Ally. It was better to share the orphanage burden than to keep it locked up. We knew what happened then. Death by beating.

Manipulating căldură had always been a necessity. It was that or dying of cold, hunger, beatings, cuts, crushed ribs, … So it was no surprise căldură spilt out with just a thought.

Our gang, through the years, diminished in size, either by being caught by the police or because they found a suitable job. A few months before I turned eighteen, Adam decided we should go explore France. There was a train leaving towards the capital and we hitched a ride in one of the wagons. As we all only had been left with only our year of birth, our ‘birthday’ was the day we had been found. I joined the kids on the 7th of June.

We stayed with Hans and Anya in Paris for one year before deciding to go overseas to England. We had accumulated some money, all stolen, but we bought no tickets. Since leaving the orphanage to escape beating and rope burns, we all learnt to survive in the streets, begging for scraps and pickpocketing. Paris had been ripe with richness, therefore, when arriving in England we could get an account and buy actions and invest. I could finally put my future knowledge to use. Even though, through the years I had forgotten some events. Gafam, I remembered.

We continued to pickpocket and stash our money in our account. Days were spent looking for food, shelter and fighting other small street gangs. We stayed us four, tight, no new members.

One day, after I had turned twenty, and I was keeping the fire in our camping spot lit, a bedraggled owl swooped down and let go of an envelope. When it flopped onto the grassy ground, the owl hooted and flew away, out of the forest.

The gang was out, busy. I blinked at the letter. On it was inked a logo. A long needle crossing vertically the middle of a bold serif M. On the V of the M, were bright wings or bursts of light. The subtitle said it stood for the ‘Ministry of Magic’. Underneath was written ‘Dept of Magical Law Enforcement’.

It sounded vaguely familiar, but I could not put my finger on it, like a dream you did not remember.

Inside a rectangular stamp was written my name. ’S. Ardelean’ Underneath, ‘Fifth tree to the left,

The Regent’s Park,

London’

Tilting my head to the side and I left the wax sealed letter on the ground without touching it. I would discuss it later with the gang, I decided. It was creepy enough to know that someone else knew my orphan-surname from Romania. Even the bank had another name. My original name.

When they came back, I completely forgot about the letter and was surprised to have another owl dropping another one.

Each day I had not picked up any of the letters, I got another one. Hans, tired of it tried to open it and was stung. A phrase appearing under the seal ‘Enchanted against Unauthorised Opening’. Somehow, somewhere, someone knew who touched or did not touch the letter. Adam got a sombre look on his face. We had survived through so many hardships, we would not be dumb or reckless and open a letter that was tracked. Therefore, each day for three weeks, we were delivered a letter by owl. We even tried to move places but we were tracked. Trapped.

I exploded and the pile of letter burst into flames.

For two days afterwards, no letter came. We thought it was finished. We thought we had won, survived. How wrong we were.

A loud crack resounded in the ally we decided to take shelter from the rain. Three tall men in long black coats appeared out of nowhere. The gang identified it as danger and we formed a triangle formation, I at the peak, as I had căldură. I did not much have to focus on it, it knew we were felt unsafe. Red heat poured out towards the men, creating a barrier in front of us. I bared my teeth and hot flames danced around our small gang. It danced and slowly shapes could be discerned. Snakes, wolves and bears, hissed, howled and growled.

One of the men lifted his hands up in a surrender gesture. The two behind him, backed up, out of the ally, giving us space. Both had wide eyes and regarded me with hunger, like the first time I had met the kids near the forest. The first time the warmth had turned to fire.

My grin turned sadistic and I could almost hear Anna complain about the glee she always felt spilling out of me in waves when we were fighting street gangs. The fire had been a constant and my first solution to get out of messes. I loved to watch things burn.

The man in front of the other two brought a stick out, and Adam flinched. He was used to being hit with it. He always had been the protector in the orphanage.

The man twirled his stick and seven chairs appeared by his side. Out of thin air. Like they did too.

My brain was nudging me about something. Something important. I could not pinpoint it. Perhaps it came from Before?

While I tried finding the missing memory, the men sat. The gang stayed standing, easier to run away and we did not know if touching the chairs would or not teleport us somewhere else. Paranoia had always helped us.

The man with the stick took down his hood. Long black hair and fierce blue eyes stared back at us. He put the magic stick away and took out a letter. The Letter. He unsealed it and began to read it.

Suddenly the memories came back like a torrent of water, clearing out the fog.

The Owl. Ministry of Magic. The tracker. The weird address. The stick! Wand.

I blinked at the blue-eyed man and diverted my gaze, thinking about mind arts and eye contact. I looked at his nose and thought back to what he said.

Crap!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems I work better in one shots or one long strips of events.  
> I'll change DoOrs.

**Author's Note:**

> Links:  
> Romanian orphans - Wikipedia  
> Ardelean - Behind the Surname  
> Punpedia.org
> 
> Title choice:  
> Scry over spelt milk  
> cry over spilt milk: What happened can not be changed.  
> scry: Seeing the future (foreknowledge)  
> spelt -> spell: Magic
> 
> căldură: heat, warmth, fire,…  
> \- Google Traduction


End file.
